Arecibo Pulsar Survey Using ALFA. I. Survey Strategy and First Discoveries

By Jim Cordes, P. Freire, D. R. Lorimer, F. Camilo, David J. Champion, D. Nice, R. Ramachandran, Jason W. T. Hessels, W. Vlemmings, J. V. Leeuwen and 14 more. 2005

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We report results from the initial stage of a long-term pulsar survey of the Galactic plane using the Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA), a seven-beam receiver operating at 1.4 GHz with 0.3 GHz bandwidth, and fast-dump digital spectrometers. The search targets low Galactic latitudes, |b| ≲ 5°, in the accessible longitude ranges 32° ≲ ℓ ≲ 77° and 168° ≲ ℓ ≲ 214°. The instrumentation, data processing, initial survey observations, sensitivity, and database management are described. Data discussed here were collected over a 100 MHz passband centered on 1.42 GHz using a spectrometer that recorded 256 channels every 64 μs. Analysis of the data with their full time and frequency resolutions is ongoing. Here we report the results of a preliminary, low-resolution analysis for which the data were decimated to speed up the processing. We have detected 29 previously known pulsars and discovered 11 new ones. One of these, PSR J1928+1746, with a period of 69 ms and a relatively low characteristic age of 82 kyr, is a plausible candidate for association with the unidentified EGRET source 3EG J1928+1733. Another, PSR J1906+07, is a nonrecycled pulsar in a relativistic binary with an orbital period of 3.98 hr. In parallel with the periodicity analysis, we also search the data for isolated dispersed pulses. This technique has resulted in the discovery of PSR J0628+09, an extremely sporadic radio emitter with a spin period of 1.2 s. Simulations we have carried out indicate that ~1000 new pulsars will be found in our ALFA survey. In addition to providing a large sample for use in population analyses and for probing the magnetoionic interstellar medium, the survey maximizes the chances of finding rapidly spinning millisecond pulsars and pulsars in compact binary systems. Our search algorithms exploit the multiple data streams from ALFA to discriminate between radio frequency interference and celestial signals, including pulsars and possibly new classes of transient radio sources.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

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Citations in the corpus

A Multi-telescope Campaign on FRB 121102: Implications for the FRB Population (2017, background): “FRB 121102, also known as the “repeating FRB”, was discovered (Spitler et al. 2014) in data acquired in 2012 as part of the PALFA survey of the Arecibo Observatory (Cordes et al. 2006; Lazarus et al. 2015).”
THE REPEATING FAST RADIO BURST FRB 121102: MULTI-WAVELENGTH OBSERVATIONS AND ADDITIONAL BURSTS (2016, methodology): “H E ] 1 8 O ct 2 01 6 2 fast transient survey (Cordes et al. 2006; Lazarus et al. 2015), which uses the 7-pixel Arecibo L-Band Feed Array (ALFA) receiver system.”
Fifty years of pulsar candidate selection: from simple filters to a new principled real-time classification approach (2016, background): “More recently, web-based candidate viewing systems incorporating similar scoring mechanisms have appeared (Cordes et al. 2006; Deneva et al. 2009, 2013).”
The 2HWC HAWC Observatory Gamma-Ray Catalog (2017, background): “It is associated with the pulsar PSR J1928+1746 (0°.03 away, E 1.6 1036= ´˙ erg s−1 , d = 4.3 kpc, 83t = kyr), the first pulsar discovered in the Arecibo L-band Feed Array survey (Cordes et al. 2006).”
On the birthrates of Galactic neutron stars (2008, background): “Radio surveys include the ongoing P-ALFA survey at Arecibo (Cordes et al. 2006), the planned transients and pulsar observations with Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), and the new Parkes and Effelsberg Multibeam All-Sky Surveys (beginning 2008 Autumn).”
The H i Distribution of the Milky Way (2009, background): “…device, several international research collaborations were successfully established to perform unique observations on the highest signal-to-noise ratio in the Galactic (GALFA-HI, Stanimirović et al. 2006), extragalactic (EALFA, Giovanelli 2008), and pulsar (PALFA, Cordes et al. 2006) research.”
On the nature and evolution of the unique binary pulsar J1903+0327 (2010, background): “PSR J1903+0327 was the first millisecond pulsar (MSP1) discovered in the ongoing Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFA) pulsar survey Cordes et al. (2006).”